Review EN/PTBR

Very beautiful artstyle and an incredible soundtrack that ends up being unfortunately very affected by how much this story gets lost, not knowing which point to focus on and still being very short
And I was also quite stressed at the beginning of the game, which doesn't give you enough time to read things and keeps forcing cuts to your face for cinematic purposes.

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Muito bonito e uma incrível trilha sonora que acaba sendo infelizmente muito afetado pelo quanto essa história se perde não sabendo em qual ponto focar e mesmo assim ficando muito curta
E também fiquei bem estressado no começo do jogo que não te deixa com tempo o suficiente pra ler as coisas e fica forçando cortes na sua cara por fins cinematográficos.

Sights & Sounds
- Highly stylized, simplistic, graphics. Everything is styled to be boxy and angular
- The music is outstanding and the high point of this game

Story & Vibes
- I'm not entirely sure what I just played
- You mostly just go from scene to barely connected scene and then the game just kinda ends
- I'll be frank, this was all pretentious as hell

Playability & Replayability
- You mostly just walk around and click on things. There's collectibles too if you want to click on other stuff besides the objects that advance the plot
- It's a walking simulator. You're not going to be doing much besides watching what's on the screen. Interactivity being limited is part of the genre, but the story doesn't save this one

Overall Impressions & Performance
- The game ran fine. No bugs or anything

Final Verdict
- 3.5/10. I don't mind walking simulators, but the story being quality or at least interesting is typically pretty important. This one is just a mess in terms of presentation. It doesn't look nice and the story is incoherent. It's like someone read a bunch of Derrida and decided being obtuse was the most enlightened thing they could do. The music is great, but that's about it

This is one of those walking simulators with a interesting narrative structure with no voice acting, however that leads to some confusion on my part as near the end it goes all out with time jumps and I personally found the narrative confusing and the ending quite open-ended, then again I could be missing something perhaps but I don't believe so.

The beginning narrative was interesting with the investigation of a disappearance, where you are also part of an internal affairs by investigating your partner. There's not much else to say really, though it does feel pretentious with the menu saying "Play Feature" much like David Cage and how his game, indigo prophecy where it says to start movie.

I don't believe I can recommend this as I can't say I fully enjoyed it, but I certainly didn't hate it either.

A movie pretending to be a game that has some great music, interesting cinematic ideas, and bold rhythmic camera cuts. The narrative is told entirely without dialogue, which was neat, but it didn't do a good enough job at explaining the plot visually and I felt pretty lost by the final 1/4th of the story (which gets pretty weird).

My biggest complaint is that this isn't really a video game, it's a movie in which you are sometimes expected to walk/look around for button prompts to play more animations.

Man, I really wish I could give it a positive review, because this is clearly a labor of love. The score is very effective, oftentimes reminding me of big budget Hollywood espionage thrillers. The art style is minimalist, akin to ‘Firewatch’, but I liked it, even though some larger areas could’ve used some more ‘clutter’ to make them feel more lived in and not like empty sets. The character animations are very simple, but I felt they were usually effective in conveying the emotions of NPCs.

‘Virginia’ goes for the cinematic experience with very little interactivity available to the player. You’ll be mostly jumping from one short scene to another, observing events unfold in front of you. Sometimes you’ll be able to roam around a room or an apartment in search of an object to click on to move the plot further. Unlike in most walking simulators, you don’t have the opportunity to explore and interact with a variety of objects or documents that would help you fill in the gaps in the story - here you’re basically just shown 90 minutes or so of vague cutscenes (there is no dialogue in the game).

Understanding the story is one thing (mostly doable on your first playthrough, although some story beats could’ve been presented in a better way), but caring about the characters is a completely different issue. Towards the end of the experience the devs clearly wanted to elicit some emotional response from me, but they failed miserably as I was given almost nothing to make me form any attachment to any of the characters. This is where the game suffers most from its extremely minimalist approach.

The surrealism did not work for this walking sim. There are no puzzles; you are forced to simply walk forward and experience the story with no dialogue and very limited reading.

It starts off strong but then goes into a hallucination fever dream. Terrible symbolism do not create good story telling. There are subjects in the game that kept repeating, like a cardinal, with little to no explanation of why or what it was representing. If I have to constantly guess what I am seeing to understand your story, it's not a good story. You did not do a good enough job to make it cohesive or understandable.

Virginia is visually beautiful and the soundtrack sure is great, but thats really all it is. It is probably the most forgettable gaming experience Ive played so far and shortly after finishing the game I forgot every detail about it (even that I played it in the first place). Its often called a "masterpiece" or similiar in its positive reviews which makes me think I just dont get the game. But, if well-made, walking sims are upon my favourite genre of games so I have no clue who this game is intended for.

Last night around midnight I decided to give a chance to Viriginia, a game I have had for years in my Xbox game library but have never even started.
First of all, the game has a very unique and beautiful graphical style. It reminded me a lot of the 'minimalism' of Kentucky Route Zero, another game where these 'simple' character designs make the style memorable.
The game has no dialogue, not a single one. It is all expressed visually with the characters expressing their emotions and their 'dialogues' with their bodies or their looks. I found the idea very original and requires the player to pay attention.
That said, the plot is obviously a bit difficult to follow. There are a lot of red herrings that don't lead to much. The last part of the game is even surreal (but in-game motivated).
It is an experience that must be tried, short but unique, at least to be able to say that you played it yourself and not a web reviewer.